ModerationpolicyNew

General Rules

Beyond Reasonable Doubt

If there is any possible doubt, a player should be considered not guilty.

Conflict of Interest

Moderators must not process reports if they know the involved parties (accuser or accused player). Having played online with the involved parties does not necessarily mean to "know" them. In this context,"to know" means: knowing them personally or playing with them online regularly.

Appeal

Players have the right to appeal the moderation decision by using the appropriate section in the Contact Form.

They MUST explain why the moderator failed to apply this Moderation Policy.

• If the message contains attacks/insults against anyone and/or trolling/spamming/disparage of the moderators, it will be ignored (= no reply) and you may get an additional penalty.
• If the message is asking us to also give a penalty to another player, it will be ignored. The correct way to do this is by reporting this player, not by appealing your own moderation.
• If the message is complaining without referring to our Moderation Policy (example: "this penalty is too harsh"), it will be ignored (= no reply).
• If the message is not convincing in any way, it will be ignored (= no reply).
• If the message is clearly abusive (multiple emails or appeal while the player is obviously guilty), it will be ignored (= no reply) and you may get an additional penalty.
• If none of the previous points are valid and if the moderators made a mistake, you will receive a reply and the penalty will be changed (or cancelled).

It is worth noticing that 99% of the emails we receive on the Appeal procedure are not relevant messages (not convincing / contains insults) coming from angry players, this is why we have to set this strict "no answer" policy.

In all cases, do not expose your case publicly, for example on BGA Forums. See why here: https://forum.boardgamearena.com/viewtopic.php?t=26665

Penalty Grid

Moderators should follow the Penalty Grid as much as possible. However, they have the right to adjust the penalty depending on the gravity of the case. The following situation can lead moderators to increase the penalty:

• the player has been reported several times for the same kind of misconduct.
• the player's wrong action can be qualified by one or several of the following terms: racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, or any type of discrimination against a particular category of people.
• in case there is provocation, the penalty may be be reduced a little; however, everyone should remain polite even if they are are provoked. Important: the provoker will not be punished if he/she is not reported.

Relapse

In case there is a relapse, the penalty may increases exponentially.

It is the moderator's job to determine the correct penalty in this case, considering the fact that the player had been warned by the first penalty.

Moderators should consider a relapse only if the new wrong action occurs AFTER the previous penalty has been applied and the associated moderation email has been sent.

Considering that it is a lot of work to analyze reports about players who do the same offence again and again, a "ban" penalty can be applied to any case if the player continues to relapse.

Special Urgency Ban Procedure

Whatever the case type, moderators have the right to ban a player from the website if this player creates a situation that is out of control and must be stopped quickly. This special procedure should only be used if there is an immediate danger for the community (ex: site vandalism, pornographic content, massive spamming in the general chat, ...).

Private jokes

If questionable content is restricted to a private circle (ex: at a game table, with no spectators or in a private chat), and if none of the players reported the behavior, the moderator should consider this a "private joke" and should not apply any penalty. On the contrary, if the inappropriate content is public (ex: post/comment on a wall), the moderator may consider this as an offence even if there is no report.

Note: If a moderator decides that this is not a private joke, and that something must be reported, the moderator should create a report for the case themselves. However, in this case, this moderator is not allowed to judge the report.

Timing

For operational reason, a report that is older than 12 weeks may be closed by moderators because it is too old.

As a rule of thumb, every report should be judged within 4 weeks.

Player Profile Influence

The player's profile IS taken into account when determining if a player is guilty or not guilty. Moderators give more credit to players with a good profile than those in poor standing.

The player's profile is NOT taken into account when choosing the penalty if the player is found guilty.

Good profile elements are:

• A good thumb up / thumb down ratio.
• Player is registered for a long time / has a lot of games played.
• Players is involved in the website (ex: validated translations).

The fact that a player is Premium or not is not taken into account when judging/applying the penalties. To say it differently: moderators do not judge Premium players differently than the others. Reports from Premium players do not benefit any kind of priority.

Moderators also take into account the profile of the reporting player (report author): a bad reputation and/or an important number of reports already judged as "not guilty" should incite moderators to be very careful with this players report.

Incomplete Reports

Analyzing reports takes a lot of time, and many reports are received. If any relevant information is missing in the report, moderators may close the report.

Penalties and Premium

As stated in our Terms of Services, being moderated is not a valid reason to ask for a refund of a Premium account. We do not refund Premium players that has been banned or that have chat restriction.

The reason is simple to understand: it would encourage all players that need a refund to deliberately be moderated.

Penalty Grid

Insults or inappropriate discussion

We moderate insults and inappropriate chat discussion everywhere on the website, wherever they happened: at a game table, in private messages, in group discussion, in the global chat, ...

If the incident concerns the BGA Global chat or a very visible space, the penalty is higher.

Concerning insults and aggressive attitude, we are particularly intolerant about relapse: if the player has already been moderated for insults or aggressive attitude in chat in the last 2 years, the moderators can apply a penalty from the next line. If there are multiple moderations already, moderators can applied the most severe available penalties.

Titre

Level	Title	Details	Standard penalty
0	Rudeness with no insult	no real insult: "zzzzzz", "faster!"	Simple warning (with no penalty)
1	Little Provocation or swearing without personal attack	Examples: noob, fuck, freak, shit	-10 karma penalty
2	"light" insult	Examples: stupid, idiot, loser, dumb, imbecile, shut up	1 day chat ban
3	Insult	Pussy, motherfucker, fuck you, go fuck yourself, trash, dick, any kind of threat, faggot, whore, slut, asshole	10 days chat ban
4	Major insult	Insult with racism, xenophobia, sexism, discriminatory against a certain kind of people.	30 days chat ban

Inappropriate avatar or username

Details on Policy concerning Avatars and Usernames

What is strictly forbidden is basically everything that may hurt a minor child or is forbidden by the law:

• Sexually explicit content (ex: porn, pictures of genitalia, ...).
• Extreme violence or shocking images.
• Explicit reference to drugs.
• Offensive/vulgar content.

The following categories are also forbidden, but we may tolerate some of them depending on the context (see below):

• Advertisements:
  • As a rule of thumb, advertisement is forbidden.
  • However, if it refers to a "cult brand" with no intention to provide a real advertisement (ex: football team), or if the reference to the brand is not obvious or is discrete (ex: joke on Apple logo), it may be tolerated.
  • Advertisement for board game publishers / board games in general is authorized.
  • Advertisement for another online gaming service is strictly forbidden.
• "Sexy" images:
  • If the main purpose of the image is "to be sexy" or "erotic", it is forbidden.
  • However, if the image is a fictional character that is considered sexy (ex: some heroic fantasy character, super hero, ...), it may be tolerated.
• Politics / Religion / opinions:
  • Images that refers to extreme positions / provocative ideas are forbidden (ex: nazi or other racists symbols).
  • For the others: as a rule of thumb, players should avoid using their avatar to advertise for politics/religion or any other opinion. However, if the image is clearly not shocking for the vast majority of BGA players, it may be tolerated.
• Text on image: our policy is also applied to the text on avatar images.

Penalties

Moderators immediately remove the inappropriate avatar or username.

For Avatars, the penalty is the same as the corresponding "insults" (ex: if this is a racist image, it should be a Level 4 penalty).

For Username, the penalty is also the same as the corresponding insults (see insults grid).

Inappropriate table description

The penalty is the same than the "insults" grid.

Kingmaking

You cannot report a player for Kingmaking.

The best way to fight against Kingmaking is to give a "Red thumb" to the corresponding player ("public red thumb").

If many players give this player Red Thumbs, his reputation will decrease and players will stop playing with him/her.

Bug exploit

To be moderated, a Bug Exploit should met these conditions:

• the bug must have been reported in the BGA bug system
• the accused player should use it often and deliberately
• the report's author must prove that there is a benefit for the accused player

The standard penalty is the removal of all the points (ELO, Arena) obtained by using this technique. If it has been used many times, a complete reset of ELO/Arena points and awards removal can be done.

Giving red thumbs without explanation

You cannot report a player for this reason.

Players has the right to give Red Thumbs to any player they do not want to play with anymore.

Translation corruption

Titre

Category	Case type	Details	Standard penalty
Insults	Insults during a game, on table chat	Must be present in the report: table ID, and the insults terms. If the insult is not in English, or if the insult is not obvious, the report author must specify why this is insulting.	Forbid to chat or publish for 3 days for small insults and insanity, 30 days for real insults. Smaller penalty (ex: 1 day) can be applied if this was obviously a stupid joke. In any case: the player should be warn that this is the last warning before ban.
Insults	Insults on general chat	Must be present in the report: the insult terms. If the insult is not in English, or if the insult is not obvious, the report author must specify why this is insulting.	Forbid to chat or publish for 30 days for small insults and insanity, forever for real insults. In any case: the player should be warn that this is the last warning before ban.
Insults	Insults on public space (wall, forum, comments...)	Must be present in the report: where to find the insult, the insult terms. If the insult is not in English, or if the insult is not obvious, the report author must specify why this is insulting.	Forbid to chat or publish 3 days for small insults and insanity, 30 days for real insults. Smaller penalty (ex: 1 day) can be applied if this was obviously a stupid joke. In any case: the player should be warn that this is the last warning before ban.
Aggressive attitude	Aggressive attitude during a game: can't wait the other player, provocation, ...	As a rule of thumb: as long as there is no insult, this is not an issue: thumb down are the solution. BUT, if the player is really borderline and should be warned, a moderation action is needed.	-1 to -10 reputation penalty. Moderators should explain that this is a small warning, and that a change of attitude is needed.
Avatar	Inappropriate avatar: explicit sexual content, extreme violence, advertising...	If needed, report author should explain why this is inappropriate. Avatar is really inappropriate in 3 cases: 1°) It can hurt underage players (explicit sexual content, extreme violence) 2°) This is advertisement / this violate some intellectual property 3°) The avatar contains a reference that discriminate a group of people (ex: nazi cross) Please also read: #Details_on_Avatar_policy	Avatar immediate removal + Forbid to chat or publish between 3 days and forever depending on the gravity. In any case: the player should be warn that this is the last warning before ban. If the player obviously don't measure the meaning of the avatar, the penalty can be reduced.
Avatar	Inappropriate username	If needed, report author should explain why this is inappropriate. Username are inappropriate when this is obviously an insult for many people. Moderators shouldn't moderate a username that is insulting by accident in a language that is not widely used on BGA.	Same as insult + Report author must explain that a username change is mandatory from "Preferences / Account / Account Management / Change my username. If there is another report 48 hours after the first one with no name change (or another insulting username) => ban forever.
Table description	Inappropriate table description	If needed, report author should explain why this is inappropriate. Table description is inappropriate when it contains insults, insanity, or tend to discriminate a group of people.	Forbid to chat or publish 3 days for small insults and insanity, 30 days for real insults. Smaller penalty (ex: 1 day) can be applied if this was obviously a stupid joke. In any case: the player should be warn that this is the last warning before ban.
Kingmaking	Kingmaking action during a game	As 99% of kingmaking reports are not accurate enough, we are not ignoring Kingmaking report (and now there are closed automatically). Instead, we've add a "Kingmaking / team play" red thumb category, and we must incite players to use this (Red Thumbs) instead of report these players to moderation.	(no penalty)
Bug exploit	Exploit a known bug during a game	The bug must have been reported in the forum, and an exact reference to this bug must be in the report, with the table id and the move number. Minor bugs that can be considered as "variants" are NOT concerned (ex: pick 4 cards instead of 3). Bugs that violate the spirit of the game are concerned.	No penalty applies: if there is a bug that has been widely used for a game, a global ELO reset (or an ELO adjustment for players who exploited the bug) will be done.
Private information / slow to play / ruin a game	Some player ruins a game by giving some private information, was slow to play or played anyhow	As long a they respect the rules of the game, anything that can happen is subjective and is out of the scope of Terms of Use. Players should use the Red Thumb system to punish their opponents if they think this is needed.	(no penalty)
Multiple accounts	A player is using multiple accounts (most of the time: to boost his ELO rank)	The report must contains the usernames of all intimidated accounts, and the reason why the report author think that multiple accounts are used. It is very difficult to find out if different accounts corresponds to different person. For example: BGA accepts that multiple players plays from the same IP address, to allow people from the same family to play at the same table. In addition, some players are using multiple accounts, but these accounts are not playing together (which is acceptable). Strong tools are available for moderators to detect multiple accounts that are used the wrong way. To detect multiple accounts, you should focus on ELO boosting, which is the reason of the multiple accounts 99% of the time. You should look at player game history, for a given game, and look at frequent opponents with a very good / perfect win rate.	For secondary accounts: ban forever. For main account: ELO reseted to 1500 / ELO penalty for all games.

Details on Policy concerning Avatars and Usernames

What is strictly forbidden is basically everything that may hurt a minor child or is forbidden by the law:

• Sexually explicit content (ex: porn, pictures of genitalia, ...).
• Extreme violence or shocking images.
• Explicit reference to drugs.
• Offensive/vulgar content.

The following categories are also forbidden, but we may tolerate some of them depending on the context (see below):

• Advertisements:
  • As a rule of thumb, advertisement is forbidden.
  • However, if it refers to a "cult brand" with no intention to provide a real advertisement (ex: football team), or if the reference to the brand is not obvious or is discrete (ex: joke on Apple logo), it may be tolerated.
  • Advertisement for board game publishers / board games in general is authorized.
  • Advertisement for another online gaming service is strictly forbidden.
• "Sexy" images:
  • If the main purpose of the image is "to be sexy" or "erotic", it is forbidden.
  • However, if the image is a fictional character that is considered sexy (ex: some heroic fantasy character, super hero, ...), it may be tolerated.
• Politics / Religion / opinions:
  • Images that refers to extreme positions / provocative ideas are forbidden (ex: nazi or other racists symbols).
  • For the others: as a rule of thumb, players should avoid using their avatar to advertise for politics/religion or any other opinion. However, if the image is clearly not shocking for the vast majority of BGA players, it may be tolerated.
• Text on image: our policy is also applied to the text on avatar images.